“I need my men strong in battle. They’re hunters not retrievers!”

Seungyoon closes his eyes from the shouting match. An ill-attempt to give himself space to think. It’s useless after all. His emotions coiling and churning just barely behind thin eyelids.

“Seunghoon, that’s enough,” he says tiredly in the most authoritative voice he can muster. They’ve spent more resource looking for Jinhwan than any other hunter they’ve lost in the fight. It’s been weeks, and no word from one of their most skilled slayers. This is why they always hunt in pairs. Vampires are unpredictable no matter how well they think they’ve scouted a nest. No matter how skilled, one hunter against a nest is never a good idea. He let Jinhwan go because they were short-handed, and because he always returned victorious, without or without a second hunter.

He should have trusted his instincts. It’s always too much to do and not enough time to think.

Seungyoon shuts down all the noise a-buzzed in his head and looks at Jinwoo who’s currently in an angry shouting match with Hoon, his right-hand man.

“—and we can’t leave him behind!” Jinwoo pleads. Though, his eyes are clear of any tears, Seungyoon knows he’d been crying almost everyday since Jinhwan went missing. He knew it from his unpolished boots to the unbottoned collar of his shirt, a far departure from his immaculate hygiene.

He would be devastated if they find Jinhwan’s lifeless body. But it’s a different problem when they can’t even find a body, or any trace of the hunter or the nest, or the town that he supposedly traveled to protect. Even vampiric powers have a limit, they can’t glamour whole towns away. With no leads and no trace, it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack at the price of his men’s lives.

“You know we can’t afford the search anymore, Jinwoo,” Hoon continues the argument. “It’s not fair to put the guild in this position! Seungyoon has a unit to command, and we have a war to fight!”

Jinwoo grabs Hoon by his collars, seizing the surprised hunter in place. “He’s a brother to us, you coward! Where the hell is your loyalty? Your duty?”

The slender man pushed back just as rough, forcing Jinwoo to stagger back a step. The commander immediately steps forward to break them apart. “And what about Jinhwan’s duty?” Hoon asks.

“He took a pledge of loyalty to the guild like the rest of us, and he wouldn’t want to put the guild at risk either!” At this, Hoon yanks his arm out of Seungyoon’s grasp. “I don’t want to put any more men at risk looking for a phantom!”

“It’s not up to you to decide!” Jinwoo growls low in his throat, stepping closer with his curled fists. He’s ready to let them fly at one more provocation. “As long as there’s no body, he could be out there—“

“Which means he also could have turned!”

“You know he’d killed himself first.” Jinwoo says, the crack in his voice resonated throughout the room.

Seunghoon’s resolve remains immobile. “Then we would’ve found his body by now. He would make sure we’d find and purify it!” He voices the thoughts that are in the back of everyone’s minds but afraid to speak out loud. The young man takes hold of Jinwoo’s shoulders, unafraid to cut straight to the truth. “Remember what we’re taught, captain. Until we confirm his death, we can’t rule out the possibility that he might be a—”

Jinwoo’s fist lands hard against Seunghoon’s jaw and effectively ends the shouting match.

The captain glares at his charge with the heat of a thousand suns, unable to accept his blunt words as reality. Hoon stares unapologetically in return and cooly dabs his split lip with the back of his hand. He’s tired, too. They all were. The older hunters grieve while the younger trainees gossip in disbelief.

Seungyoon remembers their first hunt without supervision like it was yesterday.

They barely came of age, and no trainee had been more excited about his first hunt with his training wheels off than Seungyoon. He was ambitious, over zealous, blinded by his own hubris.

With Jinhwan and Jinwoo beside him, he felt invincible. The nest was young, too, mostly of newly turned fledgling and two younger vampires. They were new bloods, mostly mixed bloods and turned fledglings, not the high-borns with ancient lineage going back to generations. Hunting the lower ranks was a tradition for newly graduates. Their instructors would’ve never let them go otherwise.

They burst through the windows of the shanty house, surprising their prey. Though, unprepared, the vampires were strong. Rather than strong, they were pure power, but they did not have full control over themselves.

Jinhwan, perhaps felt the pressure of being the eldest, went first, and fought so elegantly that spurred the timid Jinwoo into action. Seungyoon, being trained at a much earlier age, steadily lead the battle, but it was Jinhwan who shined that day. He channeled all the anger and rage in him into the art of slaying. Slaying gave him a purpose, just like his father said. Like a practiced artist working with familiar brushes, Jinhwan painted the nest red in a matter of minutes with a couple of strategic .

Seungyoon, after barely fighting off a fledgling on his own, could only stand and stare.

There are some people who are born to slay vampires. He didn’t believed what his father told him before then. After all, how could anyone be born ready to kill anything? That day, Jinhwan embodied very definition of the phrase.

“You’re all speaking as if he’s a lost cause, like he’s our enemy!” The loud voice wakes Seungyoon out of his reverie. Turning toward him, Jinwoo asks, “Is that what you think, too?”

Seungyoon locks eyes with Jinwoo. He doesn’t want to accept the loss. However, if he is to remain in command, he has to. He has to avenge Jinhwan, his brother and his blood. And if their hypothesis is true, that means they have to put Jinhwan’s body to rest. His heart grows heavy with uncertainty and dread at the mere suggestion.

Unable to lie to Jinwoo, Seungyoon opens his mouth to answer.

*

The nest work together to fix what they can and glamour the mansion hidden. After the post-mortem investigation of the beheaded vampyre, they’ve identified the markings on their body as possible vampire families from the south. The farthest land from the capital. Even with their knowledge of the old families, the covens from the southern lands was lacking. They find no useful information even in the vast library of the mansion and passed down stories.

Perhaps with the empire cracking down on covens, they were desperate to expand their territory, but there was no reason to go so far out of their way. Whatever they wanted, they only wanted it directly from Hanbin, and they knew his one weakness, Hanbyul.

With nothing else but a place and burned bodies, their motive remains shrouded in mystery. To understand their enemies, they’ll need to go to there, and they will need to prepare. Knowing he needed more time to recover, Hanbin gives the coven a week to restock and prepare supplies while fortifying the mansion.

Jinhwan doesn’t have a say in this one way or another. He continues to do their bidding at the mansion, and he’s never alone long enough to do anything else. There’s always someone there to make sure Hanbin has his daily dose of pure blood. Jinhwan is his walking blood bank, and he hates every second of it. He wonders if Hanbin plans to bring him along. He knows the farther he’s taken away from the guild, the less likely his rescue.

But time is certainly running out. Hanbin grows healthier and stronger everyday. Jinhwan has also never talked alone with him again since the raid. Jaewon made sure of that. The fledgling sticks to his master like glue and watches Jinhwan like a hawk.

For days, he waits patiently for another opportune moment.

Today may be the day.

The nest travel to town for supplies this morning and leave Jinhwan with only Hanbyul, Jaewon and Hanbin. The loyal fledgling barely pays him any attention unless it has to do with Hanbin. And his precious klavasi is busy drawing up strategies and plans. With the excuse that he hurt his back during the fight and need more time to recover, Jinhwan is allowed to stay within his room to rest instead of work.

“Finally,” Jinhwan smirks to himself. A jug or two of mulberry wine after dinner had Yunhyeong talking, and there’s apparently a cavern of storage quarters underneath the mansion that required his attention. His weapons have to be there.

The lock to his room is simple, they underestimated his resourcefulness. A quick twist and turn from a handmade shiv, and the lock is no more. Jinhwan gleefully lets himself out of the room, gliding passed long hallways and down the stairs in no time.

“With me, small one.”

Jinhwan holds his breath a split second too late.

“Want me to go get Jaewon?”

“Whatever,” Jinhwan lets out his breath in a huff and drags his feet to where Jiwon stands waiting. Jiwon somehow always knows where he is at all times as though he’s developed this strange connection with him.

“You really think we’re dumb enough to let you roam around unsupervised?”

Jinhwan squints against the bright sun from the window, ignoring the vampyre’s smug grin. “I won’t fight for you lot. It’s your revenge, not mine.” He hops down from the last flight of stairs landing lightly on his feet.

“Sure, tell that to Hanbin.” The taller starts making work of unloading their supplies at the entrance. He tosses a heavy box at Jinhwan which he caught barely without a grunt.

Jiwo